This is one of the most important entries I will write. These were some of the most memorable moments of my life and they greatly influence my life today. At least my inner life.
The use of the word 'migrant" in the Calais section sounds weird, even to me, but I don't know a better term because that's the one usually used. To me, they're just people.
April 25, 2011 - May 8, 2011
My teaching stint in France ended in anticlimax. The students barely even knew I was leaving and I had no real time to say goodbye except during classtime. Seven months and poof! I was gone. Like I was never there. Why? [Later note: Again, I'm grateful for the Korean system that places us for a full year, full time, gives us housing by the school and does their best to integrate us into the teacher lifestyle. At least, that is my experience.]
So a lot of my anxiety revolved around that, feeling like my time at the two middle schools had been a waste and nobody cared. It could have been my responsibility to integrate myself better though. And plan better lessons. And care more. I did care though.
But that was it - teaching was over and I gave myself no time to reflect. After the last leg of the Cyclotour des Paysans and the farm video shoot, I was anxious for some quality time with friends instead of strangers. Before the journey East to Bulgaria and Greece, there were about two more weeks of even more experience overload in and around Lille. Sounds impossible, even now, but there it was. I would take in another long bike ride, May Day and the Soup Festival in Lille, two nights in Calais immediately followed by a goodbye hangout in the Fives garden and packing up my entire room to make room for a new Fives housemate.
Spring was beautiful, sunny and vibrant. The last band of the cyclotour landed at the Fives house and garden for a night and when they left the next morning, I had a sudden panic because suddenly I had a few days to myself. Time to think. And thinking was not something I wanted to do.
"Two Sexy Ladies on Bicycles"
For a while, Marine and I had been planning a cycling trip from Lille to Bruges - from the northern Flemish tip of France to the northern Flemish part of Belgium. Though Marine is the more organized one, in true la-di-da fashion, we only had a printed Google map and directions, pieces of which gradually flew away in the wind.
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| We made up a song "Two Sexy Ladies on Bicycles" |
On the Friday morning of May Day weekend, we set out from cobble stoned Vieux Lille - the old, wealthy neighborhood in the northern part of the city - with our pretty crappy bikes. Our route was something like 80 km, but we were on the road all day, arriving at our lovely Couchsurfer's place in Bruges around the 8 p.m. sunset. Along the way, we passed ugly construction at the Belgian border, a big pink hippo in a pond, expertly crafted Belgian bike routes along waterways and small towns, lunch on a bench at the Lille-Bruges crossroads, 1 dollar Belgian beers on the ground outside a convenience store near a rushing highway after bouts of frustration. Marine: "I want to take the train!" Me: "No! I don't want to say I got there by train!"
After we got our bearings and put ourselves back on track, we rode on miles and miles of flat, open countryside where the sky suddenly opened to shower us with a torrential downpour. We rode it out, through breaking trees and distant cracking lightning until the roads turned into puddles and then waited it out in shelter with two hardcore road cyclists who only spoke Flemish. Amazing the difference a few dozen miles makes in language and culture!
Our landing was as cobble stoned as our beginning. Pulling into Bruges on Friday evening was a dream. Clear, warm, dry, charming, welcoming Bruges. Where there are so many bikes that no one locks them and apparently no one steals them. Our Couchsurfer Hady, fluent in English but only basic in French, was tired from work and chilling at home. So after a nice rest and dinner, we went out on the town, meandering through the main square and park lit up at night, finally settling in a bar with good music and impassioned conversation.
We called it a pretty early night and crashed on couches, waking up to a sunny, clear Saturday morning. Marine and I were in good spirits and Hady decided to take us to the Bruges farmer's market. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful, clear and not-too-hot day. Hady was a great host with a year abroad in Australia on the horizon. We enjoyed lunch on a patio, roaming around the market stands and being entertained by a travelling musician. Marine is a fan and practitioner of street theater so she really loved this.
Hady left us eventually and we kept exploring on our own before making the final decision to add another 30 km to our journey with a round trip ride north to Knokke-Heist, a seaside town on the Netherlands border. It was a beautiful spring day and we were sea bound. From east Bruges, we passed a row of large windmills and continued on through some of the most beautiful, green, lush, countryside along canals and through a forest. I absolutely loved this part of the trip. (Later I would meet a Belgian activist in Calais who hated the Belgian landscape because the government has forcibly cut down so many forests and left all this flattened farmland. But we weren't thinking about it at the time).
Nearing Knokke-Heist, something I don't remember caused another argument between us. Although none of it could really be called "arguing." It's always just heated discussion with Marine and I - us being the passionate individuals we are. Vegetarianism, mental health, self-confidence, non conformism were hot topics. And Marine always cares deeply about her friends' lives and she's always full of ideas, so she kept encouraging me to continue documentary filmmaking. Which was painful for me to hear, especially having just shot on my friend's family farm and fully unconvinced that I would actually edit the footage. (To this day, I still haven't). We finally made it to the beach, had ourselves a fancy lunch on another patio, but in the ongoing saga of squeezing everything into a short span of time, we had to haul out of there back to Bruges to catch a train back to Northern France. And I mean HAUL. We rode as though our lives depended on it with the sun beginning to set and providing us with more beautiful scenery.
But we made it back to Hady's, took a last photo at her place and made that train. Chowing down on strawberries, we relaxed on the ride back to just below the Belgian border, riding to a place where we stopped for food, hopped on a tram with our bikes and road back to the main train station Lille-Flandres where we parted ways for the night. On that ride, we got to talking with a nice middle-aged Moroccan man about travel, culture and Morocco because I had just been there 2 months before. Brief connections, they're the best.
I loved these 2 days. I think Marine did too. I loved them because I had nothing to prove to anyone. Because all I had to do was enjoy the company of someone who had grown to become a dear friend and even more so on the trip. Because of the challenges and little joys we discovered on the road and exploring a new place. Because there were no political undertones, no drama, no reason to do this other than we wanted to. We had a goal and we made it happen. It was a journey of friendship. It reminded me of what that word really means. Because sometimes, often, I forget.
May Day
This adventure started the morning after the return from Bruges and spanned 2 days because it ended up at Marine's house after a wild and beautiful Wazemmes street party for the annual Louche d' Or (Golden Ladle Soup Festival). There was a travelling couple from Berlin who needed a place to crash, so we took them into our craziness. I showed them a bit around Lille the next day, in the heat and my stress. Less relax, more party.
My room was already nearly empty and I was sleeping downstairs, but I had to finish it all on May Day because the man with two beautiful little girls was moving in. The morning was spent mad bike-rushing between the house and the May Day parade in Wazemmes. I could have chosen to go to a radical book reading at a library, but thankfully, I decided to not include that on my list of a million things to do. The parade surprisingly disappointed me, it was nothing like Boston or even the retirement reform demos, no grand speeches, not much. Oh, well. I guess the Soup Festival was grabbing Lille's attention that day.
When I got there, I was alone in the park. The soup crew hadn't made the time to actually make any soup and I missed most of the other tastings. So I was just waiting for the festivities to begin. And I was alone, with time to think. And still, thinking was not what I wanted to do. My time in France was quickly coming to an end, I'd experienced so much and met so many people, how could I be subjected to even one moment alone, my irrational brain thought. Where were my friends?? Fellow assistant teachers, activists, artists? Marine and her crew, why were they not here? I was running into people and I hated being seen alone. Clearly, I was overwhelmed and under rested.
But the party went down for sure. We all gathered, danced in the streets, which were full of music and food vendors. I'd never seen the Wazemmes market that packed. Marine's friends from Paris and elsewhere added even more life to our event. Not surprisingly, I increasingly felt less and less inclined to leave Lille. At all. Ever. How could I? But I did.
Calais
What can I say about Calais? Not much that's not already said on the site. There's the story, and I really played no part other than as a visitor. I went there before with two other activists from Lille and slept in the activist space, but this time, I went by myself and slept 2 nights on the floor of the dark, broken-up squatted building with the Belgian activist and the migrants, most of them from central Africa. At 6 a.m. every morning, they wake up with whistles around our necks to watch for cops coming to raid. Every morning people do this. And at night too. It's unbelievable. It's no way to live. Not in Europe, not anywhere.
I was able to speak Russian with one of the migrants, the only white man, who is from Lithuania. His was a particularly sad story and I have no idea what happened to him after I left. I have no idea what happened to any of the many migrants I met, as eager to share their tales of woe with me when they got the chance as with the other white kids. But the other No Border people were there for weeks, months, years. They're veterans. The one other female activist that I barely spoke with, she seemed to be accustomed and not be actively dealing with what was quite obviously sexual harassment by the migrants. It was tough for me there, as a woman. I wanted to talk to someone about it more, but never got the chance. These men live together in as much solidarity as they can muster, with few if any women coming through. They're from different cultures. They don't necessarily understand all facets of oppression, even though they are being oppressed. They're just human. I didn't have the back knowledge or the skills to call some of the men on their behavior at the time, though I wish I did.
But sometimes, it was just innocent. Like the next day after lunch at the meal station, the Belgian and one of the young Sudanese decided on a spontaneous walk to the beach with beers. I was near them at the time, so I went too. Calais does have a nice beach. Even before the first No Border trip, Rebecca and I went there for a day trip that she desperately needed at the time. This time, it was warm and it was just a few hours on the beach, some boys surfing, drinking beers, playing in the sand, just young people enjoying a good time, right? On the walk back, I got a sober reminder of where we were and why. Apparently, a desperate migrant trying to swim the Channel to England had drowned or something along those lines. A police boat was circling the waters. We had to hide ourselves, because the Sudanese man was undocumented. If he was desperate enough, it could have been him.
When we were sitting on the beach, the Sudanese, who was in his late 20s, kept tracing circles on my bare foot with his fingers. It felt nice, not violating, not weird, not even romantic, just an innocent gesture. I don't remember his story, but he spoke some level of either English or French. He was a friendly guy with a nice smile. I think he lost some of his family, or he left his whole family. I hope he's OK now. I hope he has or will somehow escape the hell of the border system.
I do remember the Belgian's story and I bet he's still around Calais. I couldn't believe he was a few years younger than me, but looked so much older and with so much more life experience. His dad was a sailor and had taken his son to so many places, including the North Pole where they were out alone with their boat. With his family and others, he had spent years in a Belgian forest occupation. That's why he hated the Belgian countryside I told him about, he knew full well what that comes from. I really respect this kid and those like him, his dedication to justice, his fearlessness and his unabashed love of life despite the darkness. When we got back to the squat, there was a rowdy soccer game on outside. Later, we sat in the dark, with migrants roasting raw potatoes over fires. There was an Italian photographer with us at some point and overall, this whole day was just a surreal experience. A different world.
The next morning, there was a raid. I was frozen. I had no clue what to do. I had a whistle, I had my feet, I had my brains, I had my 45,000 dollar a year college education, but I had no idea how to react in this situation. I wasn't trained. The stupid blond female cop pulled me out of the clearing, made fun of my "American woman" passport and rummaged through my bag. Embarassed, I joined the rest of the No Border team and migrants outside the squat. I don't remember if they made arrests or just checked IDs. Many African men were hiding on the roof, looking down on those of us on the ground. I took the train back to Lille at some point that day. I said goodbye to the Lithunian man and promised I'd be back. I couldn't say goodbye to the Belgian guy because he was fast asleep when I was leaving, exhausted from the previous day and stress of that morning. I got a few email addresses and was told I should come visit some of the African men in England when they made it there. If they made it there.
On the train back, I don't even remember my emotions. I don't remember feeling anything but emptiness. It's normal. It's just the atmosphere of that whole place, the endless violence, physical, psychological. The constant threat of raids, arrests, detention, deportation for these people who are mostly innocent of anything but not having the "right papers." The overwhelming privilege of being white and of having a valid passport, especially a USA passport. And the seeming hopelessness. If I stayed, I could probably do a lot more. I hated this sickly feeling of being nothing but a tourist, just on my own, with so little background knowledge. I just wanted to go there for myself, for my own education. I felt stupid and they probably thought I was. But I don't regret it, not one bit. I only regret not having the determination to stay. Guilt. The feelings are valid and it's all worthwhile. People are doing a lot right now. The situation is growing worse in summer 2012 because of the Olympics training. Calais is being cleared. But a new space is opening. There's a bigger community growing. There is always hope, even in the darkness.
Goodbye For Now
I was really insane. I had scheduled the goodbye party in the Fives garden for the SAME NIGHT as my return from Calais. Why? I didn't realize I was in shock until I started crying when my roommate asked me how I was when I got back. I was not OK. I needed a retreat from retreats. I needed to meditate. I needed to sleep. I needed so many things that I wasn't giving myself. Teachers from school, Lille friends and acquaintances came and went throughout the night. It was a lovely hangout in our lovely garden. When I look at the pictures, though, I think what the hell was I wearing? A red top with a hoodie over an orange skirt. Crazy on the outside too. I couldn't talk to everybody I wanted, couldn't donate enough time to all these great people that had helped me and been such great company throughout my time here. Thankfully, Marine and Riquier stayed through most of the night. They are good anchors for a wayward sailor.
The last night was the most wonderful yet, if that was possible. Marine performed at Metalus, an awesome performance space in Loos, on the border of Lille. We celebrated spring with a vengeance - many people that I loved and had gotten to know were also there. An artist/alternative life paradise. I rode back by myself late into the night.
The next day, I was off to Paris to catch the Eurolines bus to Sofia. I could write about how awful of a guest I was at the couple's apartment in Paris, for a second time, but that would just be overkill. I was self-centered. I apologized later.
I would be back to France at the end of June. But for now, I was heading East again...
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